Doctor Who?
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Can there be a doctor in the time of war? Who would accept such a job?


**A/N:** Now I quite enjoyed "The Day of The Doctor," but I still feel it could've been better. Thus, this is a AU rewrite. It'll be multi-chapter.

_**Doctor Who?**_

**Prologue**

Aculeata. Once a lush gold, nicknamed the Galactic Australia by its human settlers, due to its unusual mammal and insect life in comparison to the rest of the planets in its galaxy. The home planet of Cass, whose bandolier he wore draped across his chest. Aculeata: now just carrot colored dust.

The Warrior hoisted the potato sack over his arthritic shoulder and began the long hike across the dusty planes. He could see a pinprick in the distance, his destination: an abandon shack. The whole planet was abandoned. Or rather, exterminated, save for scavengers, like the insects; he could hear them hissing at him beneath the midday suns. Surely they knew what he was about to do, but they didn't move to stop him, in the same way that his TARDIS knew, but had nevertheless allowed him to land. Still, he had the decency to not open the contents of his sack in front of her; he at least retained_ that_ much of himself.

_Time Lords of Gallifrey, Daleks of Skaro: I serve notice on you all. Too long I have stayed my hand. No more. Today, you leave me no choice. Today, this war will end. No more. No more._

The words played in his head like a time loop. If he was a formal man, he might have said all it all and more. But not this time. Luck of the draw. He left them each one message, burned into their home worlds with their own weapons: _NO MORE_. No finesse, just machinery. In a way, perhaps, it was a formality: neither side would listen, but he was a man of chances. Or he had been. But like Aculeata, the war had ground him down to _this_.

He entered the shack and the wooden door creaked like an old clock on its way out. It was silent otherwise, with nothing but the dust falling in and out of the sunlight. The Warrior dropped the sack to floor and peeled back the course cloth to reveal a box, painted in ornate Gallifreyan circles, but they weren't instructions. He could hear the gears begin to come to life as he maneuvered his withered hands across its six sided body. He pressed one finger to the top, where a golden gear sat. It began to tick at his touch and he pulled his hand back, but it just ran on, like a broken music box. The Warrior grunted. "How do you work?" he asked, his voice heavy with time. "Why is there never a big red button?"

Something like an itch nagged at him and he lifted his grizzled head towards the door. An animal? Surely no one else was here; no one had followed him. The Warrior rose and ambled to the door where he lifted the hook and peered onto the choked land. Nothing. The itch remained, the feeling of being watched when you're alone. "Hello!" he hollered. "Somebody there?!" The hiss of the insects, the caw of the vultures, returned his inquiry. He scraped at the back of his neck and eventually shut the door again. When he turned back to the box, he saw a cloaked figure seated on it. "Don't sit on that!" he snarled, charging for the figure.

"Why not?" the muffled voice returned, refusing to move. "It's just…junk."

"It's the most dangerous weapon in the universe!" The Warrior argued. He grabbed the figure by the arm, hauled it up, and pushed it out the door, latching the door behind the uninvited guest. When he turned back, he was still not alone: the figure was there as well, exactly where he'd wrenched it away from.

"You have to wonder what kind of man you are when your first reaction to someone sitting on your box is not 'who are you?' or 'how did you get in?' but rather 'don't sit on that!'"

The Warrior rounded the figure once and stopped before it. "Who?" he demanded.

"Who?"

"Who are you?"

"Who indeed."

"Don't play games with me," he warned. "I'm not a man of games."

"Maybe you are and you just don't know it." The figure stood up. "If you don't even know who I am, certainly you mustn't know who you are."

The Warrior lunged for the hood of the cloak, but no sooner had he tried, did he fumble over the box. His teeth slammed together so hard he thought they might fall out like broken China when he parted his lips. He rolled over and found the figure seated above him, once again perched on the box. "Who are you?"

"I. Am."

The hissing from outside the hut seemed to grow deafening.

"Foreman."

The Warrior pushed himself up with his elbow. He rasped. "_Wh-at_ did you say?"

The figure lifted its hands to its hood and carefully peeled it back.

"_Susan?"_


End file.
